(1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a remotely activatable attractant for deer, for hunting, photographic or general human observation purposes.
(2) Brief Description of the Prior Art
As hunters have known for years and centuries, deer can be lured in several ways. Food, sex, and curiosity are common ways of luring deer into an area. Deer hunting generally takes place during the fall of the year and often times the deer hunting season is timed to coincide with the mating season of deer. During the mating season, male deer often compete with one another for territory and females with which to mate. In the process of competing for mates, male deer frequently will fight by locking antlers with one another and pushing and thrusting in order to demonstrate dominance. During the mating season, or "rut" as it is more commonly called, male deer in any given territory are very sensitive to intrusion by other males and are disposed toward investigating any competition among other males which takes place in their territory.
An understanding of "scrapes" is important to an understanding of deer hunting. A "scrape" is the resultant geographical area provided by a buck which has pawed out a small circular area in the dirt upon which he urinates. The buck may leave several scrapes in his territory for the purpose of luring receptive does to the area. A doe will find the scrapes and if she is in a receptive state, she will also urinate in the scrapes. The buck will scent check the scrapes on a regular basis. Upon finding that the scrape has been anointed by a doe, the buck will trail the receptive doe with the intentions of breeding her. However, deer in general, and particularly white tailed deer, are very wary by nature. This is particularly true of the more mature male deer who have survived several seasons of hunting pressure and competition for food and mates by virtue of their wits and instincts.
In surviving in the wild, deer rely on sight, sound and smell. It is an observable basic instinct of deer to maneuver themselves into a position so as to be able to scent or hear any activities which they wish to investigate. Accordingly, when male deer are investigating what they believe to be a contest among other males for territory and mates who have accidentally or intentionally entered within one of the scrapes, their first instinct is to approach such a conflict from a position to learn more about the situation before approaching the contestant or contestants who are challenging the dominance of the particular buck in his hunt for a mate in order to drive out of the boundary of the scrapes the intruding buck or bucks.
One time-honored means of attracting deer to a hunter is to initiate the sound of a deer contest by clashing or "rattling" antlers together. This may be accomplished with the use of real antlers or synthetic or imitation antlers. Most often such rattling is accomplished by a hunter holding an antler in each hand and striking the same together in a measured pattern to simulate the rattling sound of the inter-engagement of deer antlers of the protruding buck or bucks either in a contest between one another or by the buck rubbing his antlers against a tree, bush, rock, fence post, or other such "reference." Unfortunately, when such a rattling takes place, most deer investigating the same will approach from a downwind position and will actually smell the hunter creating the rattling noises, perhaps even before the hunter has a chance to see the investigating deer. This is particularly true of the larger, more wary and generally more desirable male deer.
The present invention addresses many of the problems identified in prior art methods and apparatuses as generally above-described.